


Shake

by ideal_girl (trainwreckdress)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Kink Meme, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-11
Updated: 2011-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-14 16:31:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trainwreckdress/pseuds/ideal_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, John's hands shake. A quick study of then and now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shake

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5564.html?thread=18838716#t18838716), at the Sherlockbbc_fic meme: "At the end of the 19th century, John Watson was in love with Sherlock Holmes. But he never acted on it so he married Mary Morstan. Now, a hundred years later, John Watson finds himself once again in love with Sherlock Holmes." De'anoning and doing a teeny bit of tidying up.

Sometimes, John's hands shake.

 _then_

After the 18th hour of being on his feet, putting people back together after this calamity or that, the bones in his back creaking and shifting as he wipes dust from their faces and his. He presses bandages to wounds that truly need more treatment than that, but he's been out of surgical thread for three days and antiseptic for five. He almost feels relieved when he hears the blast, his feet leaving the ground. He was certain he was going to die, and at least that would be nice and neat and he's be away from _all this._

When he asks Mary to be his wife, her face lovely in the sunlight slowly dying on the horizon, his leg protesting mightily as he heaves himself down on his good knee, damp creeping in through the cloth of his good trousers, grass tickling his ankles. She doesn't answer right off, just looks at him, through him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth until he calls her name again and then, _then,_ she just says, _“Yes, of course, yes.”_

A ghost of a touch on the back of his neck, the tickle of fingers tracing a curl of hair where it escapes behind John's ear, a voice in his ear, lips not far behind, that asks him _“Why not?”_ John tries to pour whiskey into the cleanest glasses he could find, _”I think of you, I think of us, I know you do, too,”_ hot on his neck. John feels his breath shudder through his chest, his fingers wet with drink, and he says, he tells Sherlock, admits, _“I'm not as brave as you, I can't, I can't, it's indecent, it's—”_

 _now_

After the second interview, the fifth hour, where they ask him again and again and again and again, _“Really? Active duty? You're sure?”_ and he replies, _“Yes, I can do more good there than here,”_ when really what he wants to say is _“Yes, please, God, yes, please, let me go.”_ They move papers back and forth and peer over glasses and make disbelieving noises in their throats and John does everything he can not to lean over and read their scribbles. And then there's a _“Well, you are older than most, but we're really strapped, so, request to return to active duty approved.”_ His hands skitter across the sharp crease of his uniform trousers as he stands, and he shakes hands, collects the paperwork, salutes smartly, and asks where he can catch the next plane.

When John's clasping Sarah's hand, their fingers lightly touching as they walk down the street, their conversation light and easy, her hair blowing in the evening dust-ups, cars and cabs and buses shifting by them in a riot of colors and flashes of light and he tamps down the thought of _“maybe her, but not maybe me.”_ It's then he realizes that he could never tell her everything, would always have a bit of himself walled off and that wouldn't be fair to her or him, and that feels important for some reason that he can't discern. So they play at it for a bit, both of them searching for something on the others' face, and when they figure out it's not there, it's John that presses his lips to the palm of her right hand and tells her _“I could—”_ and she says _“I couldn't.”_

And John's hand feels heavy on the back of Sherlock's neck, a friendly clap as they rattle down the stairs on the way to something _indecent_ that might be a murder-suicide or a train-conductor-gone-batty. Sherlock stops short for this reason or that and John careens right into him, a press of bodies hid through the softness of wool and cotton and denim and John's mouth goes _“oof!”_ and Sherlock's throat goes _“hrm.”_ John feels the sound knock around inside his guts and his fingers curve, momentum pushing John's palm flush with Sherlock's hot skin, stock-still and steady. And in a blink, John knows he's found out, he's caught, caught between living a lie and not, and he thinks he's finally ready, ready to admit it, ready to—

 _—be brave._


End file.
